DMK restrained from OTP verification for its ‘Oraniyil Tamil Nadu' campaign
The court noted during the door-to-door membership drive, personal information, including mobile phone numbers, were obtained and OTP verification messages were sent to the phone numbers. There is a concern of data breach. 'Data protection of the individuals is an essential element of Article 21 of the constitution. In the absence of accountability and transparency in the data collected from individuals across the State it is an issue which needs elaborate analysis,' the judges said.
The data could potentially be used by third party companies, who are managing the data for political parties and serious concerns on privacy are at the forefront. The infrastructure available for collection and protection of individual data in the membership drive are not made clear. Data protection and voter data privacy are the essential facets of Article 21 of the Constitution and falls within the ambit of right to privacy, the court observed.
The judges felt information about personal political affiliation can be used to disenfranchise voters through voter surveillance. 'Digital membership drives conducted by political parties in recent times are a new area of study whereby there is a clear departure from conventional modes of inducting party members,' it pointed out.
A clarity is required as to the means and infrastructure adopted by the political parties to collect, process and store data from the public. How the data is stored and processed and the implications on the right to privacy of the voter including the right to privacy of the political affiliation ought to be examined.
Noting valid and free consent is an essential part of such membership programmes, the court said no force or coercion should be employed and directed the DMK to provide details on the data privacy policy employed in the membership campaign and ensure the security of the data collected and whether 'informed consent' was obtained from the individuals.
'It is also to be seen if other smaller or economically challenged political parties will be put in a disadvantageous position and will it disturb the level playing field in the election thereby impacting Article 14 of the Constitution,' the court observed while hearing the public interest litigation petition filed by S. Rajkumar of Sivaganga district.
The court ordered notice to the Centre and the State government and DMK and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks.
In her separate order to the one authored by Justice Subramaniam, Justice Maria Clete observed she agreed to grant interim order in light of the serious concern relating to personal data protection and digital privacy. However, she made it clear such relief was extended with circumspection, particularly in the absence of a counter affidavit and without full knowledge of the programme's operational framework.
Justice Clete associated herself with the operative interim direction. However, she expressed 'respectful reservation' with regard to that paragraph of the order on smaller or economically challenged political parties as it contained certain broader observations which in her view were not immediately germane to the legal and factual matrix present before the court.
The judge directed the matter may be listed for further hearing on the filing of the counter affidavit and production of relevant materials by the respondents.
Ends
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Print
14 minutes ago
- The Print
Socialist planners aggravated unemployment problem
Now the question is whether it is possible and advisable to plan to achieve full employment in the short period, and whether our planners bent upon establishing socialist pattern of society can achieve the same. It is now recognised that the two objectives of achieving maximum rate of economic growth and the attainment of full employment do not go together in the short period of time though they are compatible in the long run. In the words of Shri V. V. Giri, 'The primary object of democratic planning in India should be to absorb the surplus work force by so drafting the programme of development as to yield full employment.' The same view persisted during the Third Five-Year Plan, 'Full utilisation of manpower resources can be achieved after a considerable period of development'. From these it is quite clear that the Planners have given a secondary importance to the employment aspect with the result that the backlog of unemployment is increasing from plan to plan. Our Five-Year Plans are based on certain objectives and one of them is to achieve maximum utilisation of manpower in order to achieve full employment but one must say with regret that employment is not the main objective with our planners with the result that little attention has been paid to the need for maximising employment which has been regarded as the bye-product of economic development. This view can be seen from the following excerpts. At the time of Second Five-Year Plan it was stated by the Planning authorities that 'the problem of unemployment especially in an underdeveloped country like ours can only be solved after a period of intensive development in determining the programme for the next five years the prime consideration is that at least the deterioration in the unemployment situation should be arrested'. The Directives in the Constitution envisage full employment and the right to work and live, but employment is full when everybody who wants to work can find it at established rates of pay. According to W. Beveridge, 'Full employment exists only when there are always more vacant jobs than unemployed men. It means that the jobs are at fair wages, of such a kind, and so located that the unemployed men can reasonably be expected to take them; it means, by consequence, that the moral lag between losing one job and finding another will be very short'. It must be remembered here that in normal times 100% of the working population in employment can never exist; a minimum of unemployment is bound to exist but in our country unemployment problem has become a very serious problem next to exchange crisis; it was argued that free capitalist countries failed to achieve full employment and only socialist economy can do the trick but our socialist planners have aggravated the problem by adopting unrealistic fiscal policy. By imposing direct as well as indirect taxes in the name of emergency and development incentives to save and invest have been greatly reduced. Employment cannot be increased without investment. Investment is based on the expectation of profit, which is a sine qua non of economic progress, but our Finance Minister has imposed super profit tax in the last budget so that the private sector will have no incentive to invest and as a consequence of this, employment will tend to fall. The backlog of unemployment at the end of Second Plan in 1961 is reckoned at 9 million. The number of new entrants to the labour force during the Third Plan period (1961-66) will be as many as 17 million. The Planners are expected to provide employment opportunities for about 14 million people. Thus the reserve army of man-power at the end of the Third Plan will be as high as 12 million persons. For this reason, the planners should give priority to the eradication of unemployment once and for all during the Third Plan. The Mahalanobis strategy, in this respect, has miserably failed because it was based on a wrong assumption, namely, that increasing purchasing power through investment in heavy industries in the public sector, and through expenditure on health, education, and social services, and, secondly, a planned supply of consumer goods could meet the increasing demand. The problem of unemployment can be solved. This strategy would have been successful if capital were available in adequate quantity to expand the consumer goods industries when the development and expansion of heavy and basic industries were given top priority in the Second Plan period. The Planning Commission gave more emphasis on cottage and household industries rather than on large-scale consumer goods industries. The problem of unemployment could not be tackled satisfactorily by the Planning Commission due to the absence of the creation of adequate new employment opportunities in large-scale industries producing consumer goods. The problem of unemployment would not have taken a serious turn during the Second Plan period if the planners had curtailed the volume of investment in heavy industries and released capital was utilised for the expansion of employment in the large-scale consumer goods industries. As a consequence of this policy the price level would have come down and the value of rupee would have gone up. During the Second Plan period the prices rose by 6 per cent per annum and this was mainly due to the large dose of deficit financing during the last two years of the Second Plan. In the Third Plan we find that the Planning Commission has not attempted to frame a co-ordinated policy for creating employment opportunities for 26 million persons. The Planning Commission has chalked out a programme for creating employment for 14 million persons, but whether even this can be achieved or not is problematic. The imposition of super profit tax will certainly kill the incentive of the private sector to invest and this will aggravate the problem of unemployment in the Third Plan and the Fourth plan will begin with a backlog of unemployment not less than 15 million persons. The major burden of reducing unemployment lies in raising the level of investment in the economy which is the key factor in increasing employment as well as to increase the tempo of economic development. To achieve this objective, the private sector should be given proper scope to play a vital role in the economic growth of our economy. The present policy based on ideological grounds should be reversed and then alone the twin problems of unemployment and rapid economic growth can be solved. The private sector should not be treated with indifference. Economic growth should not be the monopoly of the public sector alone. Rural as well as urban unemployment can be successfully tackled if labour intensive or capital saving techniques are adopted. This may lead to a slow progress in our planning but that is inevitable. Planning aims at utilisation of available resources in the best possible manner to attain the higher standard of living. Economic growth of a country is as much dependent on the development of its people and the people who are denied employment are the people who are denied the chance of development. In a country like ours with large unemployed and underemployed manpower planning for employment is preferable because employment will bring about an increase in output. Abundant labour supply should be regarded as an asset rather than a liability in the sense that it presents opportunities for augmenting production. Because of this factor, employment planning has a greater significance in a country like India. A suitable strategy for employment planning can be thought out only in regard to the future. In the Third Plan greater attention is paid to growth than to employment. The unemployment problem is bound to become serious and the Fourth and Fifth Five-Year Plans should give top priority to the employment problem. It is estimated that during the Fourth and Fifth Plan, addition to the labour force would be about 23 and 30 million. This reinforces the case for an active population policy. In the Third Plan, the Government has also failed to frame a realistic population policy to control the rate of growth of population. The price policy has failed to keep the rising prices under control. In this respect, one cannot expect that the Government should be able to create employment opportunities for 14 million persons. In this regard, Japanese experience has a good bearing for India. In that country, the absorption of manpower in non-agricultural occupations has shown a very great rise in the inter-war period. This was mainly due to the labour intensiveness of Japanese small-scale units. This policy can be followed in our country by giving small-scale industries, which are employment-creating industries. They will not only create employment opportunities but will also increase the total supply of consumer goods, which is scarce in relation to demand. In these industries, the gestation period is shorter than in the large-scale heavy industries, which are capital intensive. So the problem of unemployment can be eradicated in the next two Five-Year plans if top priority is given to the employment aspect instead of the growth aspect. Economic development and employment must go hand in hand and this can be achieved by adopting a free market economy. The planned economy has failed to solve the problem. West Germany and Japan have shown the way. This essay is part of a series from the Indian Liberals archive, a project of the Centre for Civil Society. It is taken from the economic supplement of The Indian Libertarian and titled 'Planning and Employment in India', published on 15 April 1963. The original version can be accessed here.
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Madras HC restrains Savukku Shankar from defaming ADGP Davidson Devasirvatham in Sivaganga custodial death case
The Madras High Court has restrained YouTuber 'Savukku' Shankar alias A. Shankar from making defamatory allegations, insinuations or imputations against Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) S. Davidson Devasirvatham in relation to the alleged custodial death of B. Ajith Kumar of Sivaganga district in June this year. Justice K. Kumaresh Babu granted the interim injunction for a period of four weeks pursuant to a defamation suit filed by the ADGP (L&O) accusing the YouTuber of presenting concocted tales woven out of unverified gossip, with a tone of certainty, in order to mislead the people at large and create suspicion and hostility. The judge agreed with senior counsel P.H. Arvindh Pandian, representing the ADGP, that the derogatory and defamatory manner in which the statements had been made would prima facie affect the reputation of his client holding high office and that Article 19(2) of the Constitution protects a citizen from being defamed. In an exhaustive affidavit filed in support of his injunction application, Mr. Devasirvatham recalled his professional accomplishments since he joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1995 and said that the YouTuber had, however, exhibited a longstanding pattern of targeting him with false and malicious allegations. The ADGP said that the YouTuber had in July 2022 launched a targeted smear campaign linking him with the fake passport scam. The online slander extended to repeated demands for his suspension and removal from service and the defamatory outbursts quietened only after the Madras High Court gave a clean chit to him. Though the reputational damage caused due to that campaign, spearheaded by the YouTuber directly and also through his proxy Varaaki, remained unremedied, 'I chose not to respond publicly and continued to discharge my official duties with discipline and commitment,' the ADGP said. However, after the recent Sivaganga custodial death of a temple security guard, the YouTuber had once again taken to the social media to level a series of grave and unfounded allegations against him, the ADGP complained and said that a completely false narrative had been constructed linking him with the death. 'The statements are entirely false, wholly unverified and manufactured without any basis. However, they were presented by the first respondent with a tone of authority and a pretense of insider knowledge thereby misleading the public into believing that they are grounded in official sources or confidential information,' the ADGP said. He went on to state: 'The truth, however, is that the first respondent possesses no personal knowledge of any such instructions, has no access to official communications, and is utterly devoid of evidence to support these reckless and defamatory allegations.' Claiming that the intention of the YouTuber was to deliberately sow doubts in the minds of the public, the ADGP said, 'these falsehoods are pushed by the first respondent with sensationalism, using provocative and conspiratorial language to stir public emotion and tarnish my name.' Mr. Devasirvatham said, the insidious allegations were amplified by other social media influencers leading to an orchestrated wave of repetition across digital platforms. 'What started as one person's false and harmful claim quickly grew into a digital echo chamber where repeating the lie made it seem like a fact,' he lamented. Apart from praying for an interim injunction specifically against the YouTuber, the ADGP also sought a John Doe/Ashok Kumar order (an order passed against unknown people) against all those unidentified individuals indulging in a malicious campaign against him in the digital space. 'Unlike accredited journalists governed by professional ethics, institutional oversight and legal consequences for irresponsible reporting; the respondents herein are often self-styled 'commentators' or 'digital influencers' who exploit the viral mechanics of platforms such as YouTube, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook to spread scandalous narratives solely for sensationalism and viewership. Their content is unfiltered, unverified and unaccountable and crafted not with a sense of public duty but with the sole aim of gaining clicks, followers, or political mileage,' he said.
Hindustan Times
2 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Do not use names of living personalities in govt ads: Madras HC
The Madras high court has said that political parties cannot use names or images of any living personality, including chief ministers and ideological leaders, as well as party insignia or symbols, in government advertisements for welfare schemes. Do not use names of living personalities in govt ads: Madras HC A bench of chief justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and justice Sunder Mohan barred the inclusion of 'the name of any living personality, photographs of former chief ministers or ideological leaders,' and 'party symbols, emblems, or flags of political parties,' including those of the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu, in advertisements for government welfare schemes. The bench passed the order on July 31 while hearing a petition filed by AIADMK Member of Parliament C Ve Shanmugam, who had sought an injunction against the DMK government's use of chief minister MK Stalin's name and image, as well as the images of other DMK leaders, in the State's public grievance redressal scheme 'Mudhalvarin Mugavari.' Senior counsel Vijay Narayan, who appeared for Shanmugam, told the court that using the chief minister's name and party images in a state-funded scheme violated Supreme Court directives and the Government Advertisement (Content Regulation) Guidelines, 2014. The court said that the use of such references in state-sponsored promotions did 'prima facie' violate multiple apex court rulings, including the latter's clarification issued in 2016 on the review petition filed in the case of State of Karnataka vs Common Cause. In such order, the Supreme Court had clarified that while the photograph of an incumbent chief minister may be used in official government advertisements, photographs of ideological leaders or former chief ministers will prima facie violate its earlier directives aimed at curbing political misuse of public funds, the high court said. 'It would not be permissible to mention the name of the living political personality in the nomenclature of the government scheme. Moreover, using the name of any ruling political party, its insignia/logo/emblem/flag also appears to be prima facie against the directives of the Supreme Court and the Election Commission of India,' the high court said. It said that keeping in mind the above, it was passing an order 'to the effect that while launching and operating government welfare schemes through various advertisements, the name of any living personality, photograph of any former Chief Minister/ideological leaders or party insignia/emblem/flag of respondent No.4 (DMK) shall not be included.' Opposing the plea, the state's counsel, Advocate General P S Raman, had argued that the petition relied on unauthenticated materials such as unofficial printouts, which did not represent official government publications. Raman assured the court that the government had not used the photographs of any political leaders or party symbols in its promotional materials and requested time to file a detailed affidavit along with authentic records. Senior advocate P Wilson, who was representing the DMK, told the court the petition was politically motivated. Wilson pointed out that the petitioner belonged to the opposition and alleged that the plea was an attempt to 'malign' the ruling party's image 'under the guise of public interest.' While recording that the State denied the petitioner's claims, the court emphasised the importance of adhering to the legal framework governing government publicity. The Bench said it was 'inclined to pass an interim order' given the petitioner's apprehension that more such schemes were in the pipeline. However, the court clarified that its present order did not interfere with the actual launch or implementation of any welfare scheme. 'We have not passed any order against launching, implementation or operation of welfare schemes of the government,' the bench said. The court also made it clear that the pendency of the petition will not restrain the Election Commission of India or other competent authorities from taking action on the basis of the petitioner's complaint. The court is likely to hear the matter further on August 13.
